My son, Jon, keeps a very interesting weblog of his ramblings and musings (www.jonandnic.com). We don’t. We do mostly ramblings. I’m thinking I should emulate my eldest more and muse more. So this is going to be the first in series of lessons the Lord is teaching me about Himself, and myself, and other selves that are important to me. I’m sharing them with you in the hope that the Lord may have something in this for you as well.

 

Lesson 1: God is everywhere. This hardly seems earth shattering, does it?  But stick with me a minute, I mean more to it than you might think. Yes God is everywhere in the sense that when we arrived in Kuala Lumpur He had a job/ministry for me and one for Pam as well. That may not be necessary for every couple, but for Pam and me it was, and He knew that. He was here in the sense that we found a place of Christian worship immediately, within minutes in fact. He was here in that He had a lovely place picked out for us to live that is neither luxurious nor wretched, but something that nourishes our minds and bodies without extravagance. We have friends that know Him, and others to witness to, and He has been in all that.

 

But there is another way that God is everywhere that I am coming to understand. It is said that crossing an ocean doesn’t make a man a missionary any more than crossing a street makes him an evangelist. What is important is the intention of the heart. I have been learning a tremendous number of things about God that I am hoping to share with you in this space. But the thing is, I could have learned these things just as easily at home, if I had been listening.

 

I didn’t need to come to Asia to serve Him. I could have served Him equally well at home right where I was working. I didn’t need to give up everything to listen to Him. I just need needed to put those toys down and listen. God is everywhere, including London, Ontario where I am from. Why do we figure we have to jet half way ‘round the world to find where He wants us to be? Where He wants us to be is open to His leading, obedient to His training, serving Him by serving others without regard for the cost or the inconvenience in order to show the world a picture of Christ. Little Christs, that’s what the diminutive ‘ian’ ending means.

 

You can be a little Christ, a Christian, right where you are. You don’t have to live in the world, or for the world. You can live in Christ, and for Christ regardless of the external circumstances of your life. External circumstances are not going to promote or hinder holiness, or servanthood, or anything else of eternal worth. It is a decision of the will: to trust Him, or not. That seems like such an elemental lesson, doesn’t it? But I’m happy to have learned it, even if I had to come half-way ‘round the world to do so. More on Trusting God later.